The Northern Lights

Chapter 9. Diaphanous Dream.

France, 2003

Azra wakes from her coma, swiftly places a hand on her belly as if to ensure that her future child has not run away. Her eye lids slide open, lilac covers her vision. Her fingers travel to her forehead, she peels the rough note off, the glue is predictably weak. She does not ring Eden, Azra is under the impression that he has gone to relax. For the past few months she has insisted that Eden rest his mind before he implodes.

Her back aches have been getting worse, as though thousands of little knives stab her spine. She gradually pushes herself up from the bed, the bags below her eyes are eggplant purple. Another thousand blades seem to electrocute her back, she returns to her bed, where her body sinks into a sea of comfort.

She picks up the book Eden has on his side of the bed, an atlas. The cover is scratched, crinkled like an old treasure map. One of the page's corners have been folded, she turns to the page, A large chunk of it has been cut out. Under the missing piece of the page reads, "Tromsø, Norway." The words instantly trigger a smile onto Azra's face, she knows what image was separated from the book. Eden has read it over a thousand times. Since they were teens, she has always seen him carry it around, always flipping to a page he has already read, the bits of text that describe the phenomenon him and Azra saw when he proposed.

Azra closes the book, returns it to his side of the bed. She reminisces about that march they walked upon three years ago, how the frostbite tainted her skin, the way her legs ached. Azra is forever grateful for that night, she still dreams about it vividly to this day. Each time Mount Arlo visits her she wakes up feeling refreshed, excited.

The last time she dreamt of seeing the Aurora Borealis was months ago. In it, she and Eden sat on a river bank beside each other, legs dangling above water. She is in her favourite shirt, the football jersey that glows yellow like a child's rendition of the sun. Feet drooping against the arctic surface. The world was dark. Stars acted like glitter in the night sky. Both their heads pointed upwards, observing the cosmos. Mountain peaks stalked from a distance. The air was frozen, each breath chilled their lungs. The diaphanous sky flickered peacefully with violet and green.

One of the mountains stuck out to her, as if it were calling her name. After staring at it, she felt as though her consciousness had been lifted from her body, somehow conflating with the mountain and the sky. The Earth and heaven. Unannounced to herself or Eden, Azra was no longer an atheist. She subconsciously believed that there was an afterlife among the stars, somewhere above those mountains, within those lights.

When she woke that day, from her dream, she longed for a new adventure, to see Mount Arlo again perhaps. That day, after experiencing a new reality, Azra discovered that she was carrying a child. She knew the dream was a message from the mountain, from the aurora. She silently begs to meet them again, to climb Mount Arlo one more time.

Azra is able to tolerate the pain in her back, carrying the weight of herself and the baby in her womb to the bathroom. It is late in the afternoon, but she still continues her morning routine. As she flosses the thin gaps between her pearl white teeth, Azra's mind begins to wonder, what will its name be? A flutter of suggestions come in, Raphael? Rachel? Anais? In her mind she laughs, begins to feel how Eden does when he lays awake at night overthinking. The name will come, when it comes. She tells herself, before stepping into a steamy shower.